The Beginning of the End
by Venus Smurf
Summary: Kronos is rising, the Mist is failing, and Percy must once again take on the gods to save a world falling to chaos.


**A.N.: **I should probably point out that this is _not _going to be Rachel-centered story. I have nothing against her, but this will be the only chapter told from her perspective.

* * *

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

~By Venus Smurf

Chapter One: The Oracle Speaks

* * *

_I miss the monsters. _

Rachel Elizabeth Dare sighed as she trudged across the grounds of the Clarion Lady's Academy, the beginnings of another headache forming behind her eyes. She seemed to be getting them often lately, though she still couldn't quite decide if they were I'm-exiled-to-the-most-boring-place-on-earth-with-a-bunch-of-stuffy-princesses sort of headaches or if they were more of a new-Oracle-of-the-gods-and-so-possessed-by-a-mummy's-spirit kind. Either way, she could use some Tylenol.

She sighed again—something else she seemed to be doing more often—as she glanced, almost unwillingly, at the surroundings that just weren't helping. For all that American high society insisted the Academy was the final word in elegance, the artist in Rachel thought only that the buildings seemed grey and dirty and old. They made her think of dead things, of decay and mental illnesses.

_Even the monsters wouldn't want to live here. _

_Well, maybe they would. If I didn't know better, I'd be convinced the math teacher is one. _

And of course math was her first class of the day. Why wouldn't it be? She tried to tell herself that it made the rest of the day seem better in comparison—sort of like eating a live toad in the morning, knowing the day could only improve from there—but she couldn't quite convince herself of that. Mr. Matthews was mean in the way only very short, unintelligent men with too many insecurities tended to be, and he seemed to hate Rachel most of all. Perhaps it was only because her red hair made her stand out, or because she had a bad habit of sketching caricatures of him on her desk and textbook and homework and occasionally even her tests. Maybe she just rubbed him the wrong way. She didn't know, but she'd already decided that if the monsters ever did come looking for her, she'd find a way to make them eat him.

Then again, as much as she relished the thought, it wasn't something she really believed would happen. Though the Oracle of Delphi should have been a walking target for monsters and gods and everything else, she hadn't seen so much as a single tentacle or claw or divine toenail since leaving Manhattan. Not even the monsters really wanted to irritate Apollo by harming his Oracle, even if they'd known where she was, and though the other gods might, they didn't really care enough to bother. Rachel was safe, at least for now.

Safe…and very, very bored.

_Enough of the pity party, _she suddenly told herself. _If you hadn't made that deal with Father, Percy and everyone else would have died, or worse, been enslaved by Kronos. Isn't a little boredom worth that? _

It was.

Usually.

**

* * *

**

Rachel hadn't expected this morning to be any different from the forty she'd already endured at the Academy, and initially, it wasn't. She dragged herself to her first class, ignoring the smug glances of the other girls, the ones with older money or at least straighter hair. She ignored the vaguely irritated expressions of the teachers she passed, knowing that she'd get much worse later, when she was actually in their classrooms and proving yet again that she was about as suited for the life of a socialite as the average kangaroo.

_Really, though, who cares if I can balance a book on my head as I'm eating? Even if I wanted to be married off to some rich playboy and spend my life overseeing charities I don't actually care about, how does that in any way make me more attractive? _

Apparently it did…as did knowing how to pour tea elegantly and how to make a dress out of nothing but the curtains even if a proper heiress would be absolutely horrified at the idea of actually wearing said dress.

What was the point of any of it? She wouldn't have minded learning how to help run a business, even if that wasn't exactly interesting, because at least it would be useful, but Clarion's idea of a proper ladies' education seemed to be as old and out-of-date as the grounds. The girls were only given the most basic of real educations and then trained to be completely useless as anything but trophy wives. Again, what was the point?

There probably wasn't one, but at least her father was happy. The gods only knew someone should be.

The minutes dragged on until they felt like hours, Mr. Matthews belittling at least half the students and screaming at the rest. More than once, Rachel had to wonder how a man this cruel could be an actual human. In her experience, people who behaved this way usually weren't, but no matter how often she peered through the Mist, he stayed human.

Until he didn't.

Exactly fifteen minutes before the class was supposed to end, the math teacher's ranting—about what, Rachel wasn't sure, as she'd stopped listening long before—was interrupted by a loud knock on the classroom door. Mr. Matthews stopped mid-sentence, glared at Rachel as though it were _her_ fault he'd been interrupted, and then stepped outside, shutting the door behind him.

Rachel hadn't been close enough to the door to see who was on the other side, and perhaps things might have gone just a little differently if she had. She might have been able to save this teacher she couldn't even stand, or at least would have had a little more warning. As it was, she only heaved a sigh of relief and hoped he wouldn't make it back before the class ended.

Mr. Matthews was gone for less than a moment. He never screamed, probably never even had time to realize anything was wrong, but when the door opened again an instant later, Rachel immediately did.

The math teacher was gone, and she spared a second to hope the monster wearing his face hadn't killed him, quickly deciding that if he had, at least it would have been a swift death. The creature standing in the front of the room wasn't one of the worst she'd seen, but he—it?—didn't exactly make her think of bunnies or puppies, either, and it would have made quick work of a lone, ignorant human.

Its body was longer than the human teacher's had ever been, a dusky red and encased in some sort of thick, overlapping plating. The hands were pincers, the eyes set deep in a cranium not even remotely human. The rear extended almost like a crustacean's, ending in a vicious looking stinger.

_Probably poisonous_, Rachel thought. _They always are. _

To be honest, it looked a little too much like the unholy offspring of a lobster and an armadillo, but while Annabeth might have known the name of this thing, Rachel didn't. She just knew that in a few seconds, it was probably going to try and kill her.

…would probably succeed, too. She was the Oracle, not a warrior.

It was staring at her, of course, but then she'd expected that. What other reason would a monster have for coming to a school completely free of demigods?

Completely free of escape, as well. She might have tried to run for it, but there just wasn't anywhere to go. The monster stood between the girl and the door, and this was the fourth floor. Even if she could make it to the window before the creature struck, the fall would kill her anyway.

"Help me, Apollo," she whispered under her breath, too quietly for the other girls to hear, though she hoped a certain vain patron god had. Would he even be listening?

Apparently not, since she wasn't exactly drowning in sun deities at the moment.

The monster obviously wasn't expecting help to come any more than she was, because rather than just trying to eat her, it took a moment to glance at the problem on the board, one Rachel wouldn't have been able to answer even if she hadn't been staring death in the face.

"Now _this _looks like a fun one. Why don't we have..." It paused, eyes immediately going to Rachel. "…_you _come up and solve it."

_Yeah, because I'm really going to walk up there and get close enough for you to skewer me. Not gonna happen. _

The monster must have seen the refusal on her face, but rather than losing control and attacking, it only began to smile. Nonexistent lips pulled back to reveal yellow, rotting fangs stained with what might easily have been blood, and Rachel felt her heart stop.

…_as if I didn't already need therapy_, thought the part of Rachel's mind that wasn't balking in terror. _Talk about a smile not even a mother could love. Then again, it probably _ate _its mother._

"No?" the monster murmured, never taking its eyes from Rachel. "Maybe someone else wants to try?"

Rachel knew a threat when she heard it. _If I don't go up there, it will only start killing others until I do. My life or theirs. _

It wasn't a difficult choice, not when she'd made it at least once already, and Rachel lifted her head, forced a little of the fear from her expression. She stood, hands clenched at her sides, bile rising in her throat, and began made her way across the room. Her steps were too heavy, her heartbeat too loud in her own ears, but by then she was only a few feet from her killer, and everything but the fear had ceased to matter.

_What a stupid way to die_, she thought. _Killed by a math teacher wannabe. _

The monster's smile had become almost greedy, and she fought a shudder as it held out a piece of chalk. Beneath the illusion of skin, she could see the sharp edges of the pincer, and she wondered if it would cut her in two or just hold her until the stinger, already glistening with poison, could lash out.

Rachel lifted her hand, forced herself to reach for the chalk. She almost closed her eyes, decided instead that it would somehow be more honorable to watch death coming.

_Sure, _thought that small portion of her mind, _because it's really going to make a difference if your eyes are open. You'll still be dead, won't you?_

_Shut up,_ she thought back at herself.

The stinger on the tail was positively dripping poison now, the droplets spraying the floor beneath and leaving tiny craters in the old tile, and the monster's body suddenly shifted to the side in anticipation of the kill. The stinger shot out, lightening quick, and cowardly or not, Rachel closed her eyes.

She would always wish she hadn't. Regardless of what she would think of herself later, she missed the way the creature suddenly froze in mid-strike, how it turned to face the door. She missed the fact that only an instant later, the door all but exploded from its hinges, fragments of wood and twisted metal flying into the faces of the classmates she'd hopefully saved.

Rachel opened her eyes when the screaming began. She didn't bother looking at her classmates, most of whom were jumping from their desks and bolting to the back of the room, because she was too busy staring at the group now battling the former math teacher.

There were three of them, youths of around sixteen or seventeen, their expressions fierce but not frightened, their bodies encased in various bits of armor. All three carried weapons, one wielding a sword, another a long knife, the third a staff that admittedly didn't seem as if it would be of any use.

The taller of the two boys—and the only one with real human legs—was taking the brunt of the danger, tackling the monster head-on, trying to get to what must have been the more vulnerable area beneath the carapace while also keeping the pincers away. The girl was using her own blade to block the stinger coming over the monster's body…and the other boy was poking the monster in the eye with his staff.

_Way to contribute, Grover. _

In the end, Grover poked a little too hard, the butt of his staff sinking straight through the monster's left eye—the satyr yelped and pulled his staff back in disgust—and this was understandably enough to distract the creature. The other boy ducked a flailing pincer, dove beneath the monster, and pushed his sword up into the creature's stomach.

The blade pierced the monster's shell and probably a few internal organs, and just like that, the battle was over. The creature disappeared in a shower of sand, leaving them alone with a room full of screaming teenage girls.

Rachel ignored them, instead smiling at the armored group, relief making her almost giddy. "Percy Jackson," she said, her smile widening. "I should have known."

And she should have. If she couldn't have a god defending her, why not an old friend? Especially one who happened to be the son of an even more powerful god?

Annabeth rolled her eyes as Percy grinned back, though she managed to keep the jealousy Rachel had thought she'd gotten over from showing too strongly in her expression. "Come on," she snapped, obviously not in the mood for tearful reunions. "If one found you, more will come. We need to get out of here."

Annabeth was right—as usual—but though the gravity of the situation had not been lost on Rachel, who immediately turned to retrieve her school bag, it had—also as usual—completely escaped Grover.

The second the teacher had disintegrated, the tall satyr had thrown his staff to the ground, leaped over a desk and headed for the nearest group of girls, a flirtatious grin already spreading over his face. "Ladies, ladies!" he called, opening his arms wide for the girls still too busy screeching to even notice him. "The great warrior Grover has saved you! Come to me, my lovely ones!"

If anything, the screaming got worse.

_I wouldn't want a lecherous goat man hitting on me, either, _Rachel decided, though it wasn't as though her classmates knew the satyr's human legs were fake. The false legs were still in place, even if the crutches seemed to be missing.

Rachel almost smiled. _It's probably just the armor. Or, I don't know, the dead teacher. Either way, Grover won't be getting any digits today._

Grover was now actually trying to catch one of the girls. He reached out to one, only to have her push him away while a second girl, still shrieking, tried to defend her classmate by braining him with a text book. Grover ducked, barely escaping with his horns intact…though he might have tried again had Annabeth not reached him, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back to where the door had once been.

In any other situation, Rachel might have grinned. As it was, she took one last glance around the room and frowned instead.

For all that she didn't even know how they had managed to destroy the door, the room looked as though a bomb had exploded inside. Only a single hinge remained where the door had been, and the entire front half of the classroom was covered in shrapnel and overturned desks. Her classmates were huddled together on the far side, some still screaming, others now only sobbing.

She couldn't blame them. _What did the Mist show them? A couple of teenagers in strange clothing breaking into a classroom and stabbing a defenseless man? And I'll be the social misfit who left with the people responsible. _

_Dad is _so _not going to be happy. _

More shouting in the hallway, the sudden, shocked cry of a woman.

_Did they find Mr. Matthews? _

"Hide your weapons," Annabeth hissed, already sliding her knife into the bag Rachel only now noticed hanging on one shoulder. Percy quickly complied, changing Riptide back into a pen and slipping it into his pocket.

Grover just shrugged, his eyes still on the girls. "Mine's covered in eye boogers," he explained. "I don't want it anyway."

Rachel barely heard him. She'd darted back to her own desk, finding her bag just as one of the other teachers reached the classroom. He was a short, pale man, not one of hers, but at least human. He already looked shaken, but his face paled even more as he took in the state of the room, the crying girls, the strange teenagers clustered by the door. "What _happened_?" he demanded almost angrily. "And who are you?"

He tried to grab Annabeth's arms, but the demigod was too quick, and she bolted out the door before he'd even realized he'd missed. Percy and Grover followed, Grover moving swiftly enough even without his crutches, Rachel only seconds behind them. The teacher hesitated, trying to decide between following them and staying to care for the crying girls. By the time he chose to run after them, they'd already slipped into the crowd of students and instructors gathered a short distance down the hallway.

They might have escaped without anyone else noticing them, but Rachel paused for just a second as she pushed her way through the crowd, elbowing her way to the center. She'd already known what she would find, but her expression fell anyway, her stomach suddenly churning with nausea and guilt.

Mr. Matthews was slumped against a wall, his eyes open and glassy, his expression twisted with surprise and pain. His skin was waxy, his neck slightly swollen and marked by a single puncture wound. A man was bending over him, his fingers still pressed against what should have been the teacher's pulse.

_It's my fault_, she thought as the man shook his head and let his fingers drop. _I helped kill him. _

A hand dropped to her shoulder, and Rachel looked up into Percy's concerned blue eyes. He shook his head, frustration tightening his expression, but there just wasn't anything they could do. Even demigods couldn't bring back the dead.

She let Percy pull her back through the crowd, the four of them slipping out the other side and down another hallway. Others ran past them, but if they noticed the armor, they were too interested in the commotion and the rumors already circulating through the school to care.

The dorms weren't far from the main building, and they stopped just long enough for Rachel to throw a few last things into a suitcase she'd more or less kept packed just in case something like this ever happened.

Percy raised a single eyebrow as Rachel tossed her phone charger into the suitcase. "I gotta ask," he said. "Did you see this coming, or were you just that eager to leave?"

She started zipping up the suitcase, not needing any time to consider that. "I haven't had a single vision or prophecy since I came here," she admitted. "I didn't see any of this coming."

She didn't tell him how worried that made her—what good was an Oracle without visions?—or how miserable she'd been.

And judging by the sympathy in his expression, she didn't _need_ to tell him. One more good thing about having a demigod as a friend: they understood what it was not to fit in, what it was to worry about living up to expectations.

_At least I'm not dyslexic. Or duking it out with the gods. I wonder if Annabeth is still dodging cow droppings? _

It wasn't something she even wanted to ask.

**

* * *

**

The journey to Camp Half-Blood was as uneventful as two demigods, a satyr, and the Oracle could make it, at least in the beginning. They slipped through the school gates without incident, climbed into the van waiting for them on the other side. Rachel smiled a greeting at the many-eyed driver, Argos, and tried not to feel too much regret as Percy automatically slid into the seat next to Annabeth, as he absently draped his arm over her shoulders.

_What might have been_, she couldn't help thinking, though it wasn't as bad as she'd expected. She knew her destiny, even if she hadn't completely figured out how to use her gifts just yet, and if that destiny didn't involve boyfriends or marriage or children, what of it? This was what she had chosen.

…_which reminds me… _

Rachel turned a quizzical frown on Percy. "How did you know I was in danger? Even I didn't."

Percy shrugged. "Apollo's been keeping an eye out for you," he said. "He somehow got word to Chiron that something was after you."

Rachel nodded, not bothering to ask why the god hadn't come himself—_At least he's looking out for me—_choosing instead to watch her friends. She'd missed them more than she'd realized, though now that she was out of danger and fear was no longer a distraction, she could also see that something was not right with them. Grover was staring out the window, practically twitching at every car they passed, his fingers clenching the door handle a little too tightly. He looked tired, worried.

They all did. Percy and Annabeth were equally tense, dark shadows under their eyes. They looked as though they hadn't slept in a week.

It was never a good sign when demigods were worried. What was going on?

Rachel frowned. "What aren't you telling me?"

Percy and Annabeth glanced at each other, some unspoken communication passing between them, and then Annabeth sighed. "It's the monsters," she reluctantly told the other girl. "They're…everywhere. We'd thought they'd quiet down after Kronos, especially when so many of them died, but the entire country is _crawling _with them. Monsters that should have taken centuries to reform are somehow already back, and instead of staying sort of hidden, they're killing as many mortals as they can."

_Like Mr. Matthews_, she thought, the twinge of guilt already becoming familiar_. _"Why?"

Beside her, Grover pulled a tin can from a pocket she hadn't known he had. He bit into it, the metal grinding between his teeth. Rachel winced, distracted for just an instant, but she turned back to Percy just in time to catch his grimace.

"It's probably best if we don't discuss it just—" he started, but whatever else he might have said was lost as Argos suddenly slammed on the gas.

Annabeth was staring through the rear window, her expression hardening. "We've got company," she muttered, eyes focused on the stretch of highway behind their van.

Rachel chose not to turn, but Grover twisted in the seat beside her, practically crawling over the seat to see. He cursed loudly, then fell back onto the van's bench and looked mournfully at the can he'd been chewing. "…there goes breakfast."


End file.
